Mouse controlled manipulator arm

[Oleg] worked out a way to use his USB mouse to control this manipulator arm. Using a Lynxmotion AL5D (we’ve seen the AL5A previously) he drives the six servos with an Arduino servo shield. A USB host shield handles the HID end for connecting the mouse. The video after the break says it all, [Oleg] has no problem picking up that figurine quickly and accurately. Sliding the mouse controls horizontal movement in all directions. The scroll wheel moves the claw up and down. And holding the left or right buttons what using the control wheel closes or rotates the claw. All we can say is: Bigger, BIGGER!

Cool!
Though I don’t know about using the wheel for all the fine movements, I think it wouldn’t been easier to have the L/R mouse buttons determine if the X/Y axis of mouse movement translate to the elbow movements. e.g. Left down + mouse Y movement would work better for arm Z movement, and/or Left+X for rotation…

that’s so cool
an @ M4CGYV3R quit being a prick…the shields are not something that the layman has much use for it in it’s self is a piece of hacker tech there for a hack. Plus the mouse is a pointing device and is being used to control an another device without the use or direct aid of a computer or laptop so there for that is a hack as well. PPYHOYA

– connect the robot arm to an iPhone 4 via Bluetooth.
– mount a small, outward-facing video camera onto the robotic arm, so you can see where the arm is via your Internet equipped iPhone 4, provided the video camera is wireless enabled as well.
– use the iPhone 4’s gyro to move the arm around and you would be able to SEE out of the wireless camera, from your iPhone 4’s screen.
– double-tap the iPhone 4’s screen and some switches appear, with enough room still available to be able to see out of the robotic arm. The switches trigger the gyro’s control to and fro the entire robotic arm, and rotating, to rotate the grabber.
– with double-tapping also brings up a slider which can be used to close and open the grabber.

The end of the hacking community occurred pretty much as we had predicted. Too many noobs, not enough parts or datasheets to go around. The details are trivial and pointless, the reasons, as always, purely nerdy ones.